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There’s No Such Thing as a Free Launch

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there'd be a shortage of sand." — Milton Friedman

As President Obama took office in 2009, I sold electronic health records, which track a patient’s medical history by computer instead of by hand. For a couple of decades, companies like mine had helped medical providers save money while they improved their patients’ quality of care. Once we installed and launched EHR software at a doctor’s office or hospital, it was a win for everyone.

Many in the EHR industry were thrilled when Congress passed Obama’s “stimulus” package since it included nearly $20 billion of incentives to help doctors and hospitals purchase software. D.C. is opening the money spigot, manufacturers thought. Let the good times roll!

As any free-market advocate knows, there’s no such thing as a free lunch — or a free software launch. The feds provided yet another object lesson in the perils of government intervention.

Before the industry could start raking in that “free money,” they only needed one clarification. To receive one of Congress’ incentive payments, providers had to show that they are “meaningfully using” their EHRs. Since Congress added that two-word phrase to the 1000-page stimulus legislation, they must have a quick definition right? They should get back to us by the end of the day, and we can get to selling! Okay, maybe by the end of the week? Err… end of the month?

Fifteen months later, a sub-suboffice in the Department of Health and Human Services dropped a stack of dead trees on the industry. The simple two-word phrase had ballooned into a 650-page “interim final rule” which defined “meaningful use” through a series of new regulations, certifications, quality checks and best practices that your local family doctor had to follow if he wanted his slice of government cheese.

Since that interim rule contained several contradictory demands, meaningless requirements and flat-out errors, the HHS later released a “final rule” weighing in at 850 pages. But that was only “Stage 1” of meaningful use; Stages 2 and 3 were promised in the years ahead.

Oh, and in the meantime, Congress passed Obamacare, which added 2,700 pages of new rules never mentioned by HHS's CMS/ONC 850-page EHR Meaningful Use Final Rule (Stage 1). Have a headache yet? Don’t worry; I had one for a year and a half straight. Overnight, my job changed from helping customers to dissecting turgid bureaucratese and offering my own Talmudic interpretations.

As is so often the case, what was intended to “help” instead created a regulatory nightmare. I assume that most of you didn’t know much about the EHR industry nor did you care. But expand this one tiny example into the entirety of government incentives, special tax breaks and outright crony capitalism.

For every highly publicized Cash for Clunkers, Solyndra, or pork-filled Sandy relief bill, there are hundreds of untold stories of wasted time, money and effort by workers in nearly every field. You probably have stories of your own that blow mine away.

“Free money” leads to new rules. When the rules don’t work, even more rules are created with new federal agencies to interpret, measure and enforce them. Then the next president decides the whole system is an over-complicated mess, so he orders more “improvement.” Lather, rinse, repeat.

Perhaps this vicious circle of idiocy could be indulged in good economic times, but $16 trillion in debt later, we no longer have the luxury. It’s past time for every American in every industry to start brown-bagging it. History proves that it will be a lot cheaper than the “free” lunch Washington is offering.

Bureaucracy too large? I find the creation of "Homeland Security" a waste of $46.9M/2012. We supposedly (?) have the best military, intelligence community in the world and yet Bush43 felt it necessary to begin and entire new cabinet position and bloated government agency? Talk about idiocy!

And how many BILLIONS have we spent, and continue to spend, with the use of court time for all of the ridiculous arguments created by the misunderstanding of two words in The Constitution; "well-regulated militia?" More money wasted and as each case goes to court? More and more the gun lobby is "refining" (read constricting) personal freedoms with their challenges as the rulings make definitions that weren't there to begin with, they define it all now.

We have Senators wasting government money by filibustering rather than openly arguing and refining their points to bring common ground and effective governance to this country. NO, we have to have those who would rather build page after page of committee work on specious accusations than actually do the work they were elected to do. Ridiculous!

Time to stop the unilateral Congress of Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor and have them do their jobs instead of wasting tax dollars with their franking privileges and flights home to their districts where they report on what? That their grandstanding has all but stopped effective governance in the USA. How sad and pathetic. The world is watching and the downgrade in the credit rating is evidence of its disapproval.

Republicans are preparing their course of action as they await the Supreme Court’s highly-anticipated ruling on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. The disastrous health care overhaul bill should be declared unconstitutional, but unfortunately, not all Republicans want it to be gutted in its entirety. Some prominent Republicans are pledging to preserve the so-called most “popular” provisions even if the monstrous law is overturned.

I'm not normally in the habit of rewarding leftist blogs with links or mentions that drive up their traffic, but today I can't resist.Here in Oregon, owing to the large population of liberal voters in our urban centers, one of the most followed blogs is Blue Oregon. Think of Blue Oregon as a sort of ThinkProgress on a state level.

UPDATE (6/25):
We now believe the Supreme Court will publish its health care decision at around 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, June 28th. Click here to follow our coverage live from the Supreme Court steps:
http://www.ustream.tv/user/freedomworks
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ORIGINAL POST (6/20):

Of all the health care issues facing policymakers, the “pre-existing conditions problem” may be the most difficult to solve. What are pre-existing conditions? They’re simply long-term ailments that make it more difficult or expensive to purchase health insurance.

The provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) that requires health insurance companies to let children stay on their parents’ policy up to age 26, has recently figured prominently in the news. Most Democrats enthusiastically support it, and a few Republicans do as well, arguing that it has already helped 2.5 million young adults gain health insurance, and will “help” many more in the future.

Fellow activists and bloggers:Here's a handy list of some of the very best right-of-center experts and resources on ObamaCare and health policy. (I've purposely avoided including experts who are already well known, in favor of ones who deserve to be better known.)If you know of someone who should be added to this list, or would like to update this information, just send me an email at dclancy@freedomworks.org. Dean